Boulder will consider increasing benefits to some retired police officers served by an old pension plan as part of the 2014 budget.

The so-called "old-hire" police officers, those who were hired before April 1978, are under an old pension plan that no longer has any current employees paying into it.

The former police officers under the old-hire plan have said they struggle to make ends meet on the meager benefits and have asked for a 10 percent increase and regular cost-of-living raises. As former government employees, many of them have little or no Social Security benefits.

Until 2000, the plan was fully funded, but, like many pension plans, it has been buffeted by the economic downturn and the vagaries of the stock market, Finance Director Bob Eichem said. In 2008, the plan was only 52 percent funded. The city sold pension-obligation bonds to put an additional $5.5 million into the plan, but it remains only 90 percent funded.

Eichem said adding enough money to the pension plan to fund those increases would be expensive and complicated, as the plan needs to generate enough money for the existing members and also wind down as the former employees and their widows pass on.

It would be less expensive and simpler to pay for increases directly from the general fund, rather than attempt to restructure the pension plan, he said.

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At a study session Tuesday night, Boulder City Council members said they were open to that idea.

Eichem will develop several options for multi-year increases, with priority going to raises for the lowest earners, and include them as part of the 2014 budget proposal, which will be presented to the council in August.

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